I laugh when people call me brave. They do not see my heart like God does. I may not be afraid of spiders and snakes, but my fears are vast and intangible. They loom over my shrinking soul with the grinning taunt of an uncertain path.
My courage is thin: it flutters feebly against imaginary evils.
Four times in the first chapter of Joshua is the command given: Be strong and courageous. Four times my forehead wrinkles in a frown of not knowing. What is a brave heart, and how does one go about getting one? Bravery is an inspiringly fearful trait. It is not to be unafraid, but to face the fears you dread.
My battle is not against flesh and blood--I am blithely heedless of things that should concern me, much to the chagrin of my family. I fear things like disappointment, failure, rejection, condemnation. My brand of fear closes me off from others, shuts out the world that can hurt me, and replaces hope with dismal apathy. It is easier not to try than to be rejected.
While I was auditioning at music schools for college, I avoided as long as possible auditioning for the Cincinnati Conservatory, because I was intimidated by it. I had been playing harp for only a year and a half when I was accepted as a performance major at this high-quality conservatory. I chose not to go because financially it would have been hard, but to this day I believe it was the high ceilings and carved doors that really frightened me out of the opportunity of a lifetime. Oh, the places that I might have gone.
Four years later, I decided against grad school with the same ingrained beliefs in my inadequacy. Why even try if I am destined to fail? The mystic Yoda says that there is no try, therefore in the choice between do and do not, I do not every time. After all these years, I am surprised to find that Master Yoda, while perhaps being technically accurate, is nevertheless wrong. It is perhaps good to try.
The Dawn Treader passes through a dark island of fog, where nightmares come true, where Lucy clings to the deck and whispers for Aslan. Only she hears him whisper back: "Courage, dear heart."
Courage, dear heart. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
I work next to my manager for half an hour during a slow day, silent. I should be asking him about time off at Christmas, but I am too afraid of the dreaded and inevitable disappointment. When I get home I find, enclosed in a letter from my mom, a quotation from Francois Fenelon. "There is only one way to love God: to take not a single step without Him, and to follow with a brave heart wherever He leads." My heart is not brave in this course of His leading. It is shirking, shy, slothful to try where it does not expect to succeed. I run from my potential because I fear not being able to live up to it. I run from my strengths because I may be forced to learn their weaknesses.
Breathing comes shallow and Aslan's voice whispers again to my cringing soul. Courage, dear heart.
